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KHULUMANI SUPPORT GROUP From Victims to Active Citizens

pic: Khulumani marches to community imbizo, Thokoza, East Rand 2013

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KSG Administrative Details

Legal name and status of organisation:

Khulumani Support Group Non-profit Organisation; Public Benefit Organisation

Directors: Mr Gecelo Sidumo (Board Chairperson), Ms Beauty Ndlela (Board Treasurer)), Mr Elpideo Sidumo (Board Secretary), Ms Tsholofelo Lobeko and Ms Belinda Ameterra (Additional Members)

Office 19 Kutlwanong Democracy Centre, 357 Visagie Street, Pretoria Central 0002

Operational Contacts National Director, Dr Marjorie Jobson: Cell: 082 268 0223; Email: marje@khulumani.net & director@khulumani.net; Fax: 086 566 4078 Member Liaison Officer, Mr Frans Mogajana: Cell: 081 723 1284; Email: frans@khulumani.net Administration, Ms Faradiba Morton: Cell: 074 979 0101; Email: admin@khulumani.net Information Manager, Mr Pierre le Roux: Email: info@khulumani.net

Website: www.khulumani.net Registration number: 008-135 NPO PBO Registration number: 930 029 992 Official logo Khulumani Support Group

Auditors: Douglas and Velcich, PO Box 32707, Braamfontein, 2017 Tel: (011) 4032775

Legal advisers: Charles Abrahams, Abrahams & Kiewitz Tel: (021) 9144881

Bankers: Bank: Branch: Branch Code: Account Name: Account Number:

Nedbank Business Central 128405 Khulumani Support Group – Main 1284046052

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Executive Summary

pic: Khulumani “Gogos project”, Thokoza, East Rand 2013

As South Africa marks twenty five years since the election of our post-apartheid government, Khulumani Support Group has emerged as a leading social movement actor positioned to play a key role in the on-going processes of transformational justice, taking our country from a damaged society reeling from apartheid oppression and repression, and the eruptions of the liberation struggle, to a society founded on democracy, justice and ubuntu.

Khulumani Support Group is preparing to mark its 25th Anniversary in 2020. The context has changed but the critical role of civil society in providing for support for community-based advocacy for redress, social justice and the advance of accountability measures across our society, continues. Khulumani has developed a range of new strategic partnerships for the next critical period in securing a truly participatory democracy. Our vision remains the same – to build a just society in which the dignity of people harmed by gross violations of human rights.

Khulumani has reaffirmed the need for measures for accountability and democratic practice, measures that are enshrined in Khulumani’s constitution; for providing space and visibility for the voices of members rooted in Khulumani member groups across all our provinces, so that their demands drive the organisation’s campaigns, positions and activities; and for even

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more responsive advocacy support in response to new and emerging challenges and conditions.

Participant feedback meeting, East Rand

Background Khulumani Support Group was originally founded in 1995 by a group of survivors of apartheid human rights violations, to provide support and assistance to people testifying before South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). These small beginnings generated the vision, goals, and structures that persist to this day: Khulumani is a membership-based, civil-society organization which campaigns for truth, healing, and redress for those damaged through our apartheid history, and for the advance of the ongoing struggle to create a democratic, non-racial and just society.

When the TRC closed down for survivors’ testimony, in 1998, Khulumani members were in a point position to recognize and engage with the “unfinished business” of transformational justice in South Africa. The extent of the TRC’s “unfinished business” remains breath-taking. By 2003, only a small percentage of those who fitted the TRC categories of defined victims (the so-called KATS categories – Killings, Abductions, Torture and Severe Ill-treatment and bodily harm) had given statements to the TRC. (The TRC recorded 22 000 statements; while the Khulumani database holds over 90 000 records of people who fit these categories – and we do not believe that is a final record.) Many perpetrators refused to testify before the commission, or were denied amnesty; yet the government has charged only a handful of

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perpetrators for apartheid violations. Khulumani works on a Task Team that is driving progress in respect of these prosecutions. The work is demanding in many ways but the relief of finally securing the truth provides the most possible relief in the circumstances to families of those who died in detention or in other still mysterious circumstances.

After accepting the TRC’s final report, government decided to give “final reparations” to only 16 100 people named by the TRC (a fraction of those who might have qualified); and the amount paid out has been a quarter of that recommended by the TRC commissioners. While committed to community rehabilitation processes, these remain under debate because the use of the funds designated by the National Treasury for direct victim relief and rehabilitation, remains contested and without any implementing policy. The implementation of the TRC recommendations have been left to a TRC Unit in the Department of Justice where The President’s Fund is also located. There have been many difficulties related to the very serious lack of accountability of this Unit to the victims and survivors of the crimes of the past. This struggle continues.

As government commenced post-TRC implementation, Khulumani members were positioned to engage with, and then challenge, what many victims and survivors increasingly described as South Africa’s failed transformational justice process. As a membership-based, civil society organization, mobilized through branches, provinces, and national structures, Khulumani gained national and international recognition as the foremost stakeholder in South Africa’s on-going campaign for transformational justice – to hold government and our society as a whole to meet its promises of truth, justice, redress and reconciliation, as recommended by the TRC.

Khulumani’s interventions in the decade following the TRC’s final report included:

1) engagement with the Department of Justice (as the implementing agency for reparations) to ensure identified survivors received benefits allocated;

2) demanding recognition and redress for those who qualified but for a range of reasons were not included on the TRC lists (this covers those who could not testify for a range of reasons; whose statements were lost or dismissed as incomplete or unverified; people who felt too traumatised to testify; as well as combatants who were given to understand that the harm that they suffered as individuals would be covered by their organisations’ submissions);

3) ensuring that government takes measures to bring to justice those perpetrators who had not received amnesty;

4) working with government on unresolved disappearances and other areas where events and actions remain hidden;

5) working with government and civil society towards memorialisation and commemoration of people’s sacrifices, suffering, and heroism;

6) engaging with government towards implementing effective community rehabilitation measures (beyond the individual reparations allocated) that would meet the needs of those damaged by apartheid violations (no community rehabilitation projects have been started, as of the present); and

7) continuing to seek out mechanisms to hold international corporations who profited from apartheid to account, and to ensure that they provide restitution to people in our country harmed by their actions, through international justice provisions (best-known of these is the international lawsuit still on-going in the US courts).

Khulumani’s membership has soared to over 100,000 survivors and family members of victims of gross human rights violations. Increasingly people throughout the society have realized that the measures taken to redress apartheid damage have left the majority of those

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affected unable to find repair –whether from on-going medical damage (both physical and mental trauma), poverty exacerbated by loss of family members or destroyed homes, and the inability to access education, social services, or basic support. Those most harmed by repression and oppression in our past have proved to be those least able to take up the opportunities created by government initiatives (notably B-BBEE initiatives and other programmes including preferential procurement measures and more) To quote one Khulumani member in Aliwal North: “We fought because we believed that the people shall share in the country’s wealth; only to find out that only some people are now sharing in the country’s wealth”.

pic: Khulumani members in poverty, Cathcart, Eastern Cape.

Member Needs Drive the Development of

Organisational Objectives i. To secure acknowledgment of what happened to victims through ongoing truth-

recovery processes. Khulumani uses narrative processes, ‘art and memory’ processes and oral history processes to document these histories and to produce publications, installations and exhibitions. Khulumani’s Apartheid Reparations Database contains the biographies of both those who were harmed and those who sacrificed their lives in the mass struggle against apartheid. The database has informed Khulumani’s litigation against multinational companies, charging them with aiding and abetting the perpetration of gross human rights violations.

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ii. To support the collective struggle for social justice to fully realize the achievement of the TRC’s recommendations for rehabilitation and community reparations, and to promote an environment that supports the rule of law, that provides equal access to justice for all citizens and that promotes a culture of accountability. Khulumani pioneered outreach to its members to build capacity in access to and the use of information through the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) to try to hold government at local and national levels accountable. Khulumani members have used their information-gathering skills to develop dossiers of information on the cases of the forcibly disappeared to advance the right to have all cases of the ‘disappeared’ investigated by the National Prosecuting Authority. Khulumani members have developed considerable competence in taking forward advocacy on the human rights issues that affect the members of their local communities.

iii. To work for the economic reintegration of victims and survivors through the development of livelihoods activities in partnership with various agencies. The Khulumani framework for member enterprises is linked to activities that meet the social and economic rights contained in the Bill of Rights, such as the right to food, to water and sanitation, to quality education, to a safe and healthy environment, to housing and to accessible quality health care.

iv. To facilitate youth participation in social justice issues. Khulumani has a Forum Theatre group of young people who create pieces about problems and issues in the community as a tool for community participation in problem-solving. Khulumani has facilitated processes to reintegrate former combatants through skills building in computer literacy, in oral history techniques and in community-based research into the practices of companies in different sectors.

v. To promote justice and reconciliation globally through knowledge exchanges and visits to victims’ groups in countries in the African region and to international meetings where processes for achieving justice and the empowerment of the victims are explored.

Khulumani’s Participation in Networks / Coalitions a. Khulumani is a member of the Know Your Constitution Campaign and the

Working Group on Constitutional and Human Rights for advancing constitutional literacy and human rights awareness. This is based at Constitution Hill and works to promote community awareness of the power of using the rights protected in the Constitution for advancing community struggles related in particular to ending discrimination and to advancing social and economic rights.

b. Khulumani has become one of five national organisations invited to participate formally in the National VEP Forum of the Department of Social Development.

c. Khulumani is a member of the National Steering Committee towards the development of a National Action Plan on Gender, Peace and Security in South Africa (towards the implementation of UN Resolution 1325)

d. Khulumani has partnered the Centre for Human Rights and the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable in efforts to develop a National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights and to promote compliance with the Ruggie Guiding Principles in local community struggles.

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e. Khulumani serves on the Gauteng Provincial Steering Committee on Military

Veterans set up to organize to meet the needs of military veterans registered on the Gauteng database of the Department of Military Veterans.

f. Khulumani has been an implementing partner of the Ekurhuleni Metro Municipality’s Graduate Intern Placement Programme to assist in placing young graduates in workplaces for work experience and career development.

g. Khulumani has been a founding member of the South African No Torture Consortium (SANTOC) along with the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, the Institute for the Healing of Memories, the Trauma Centre for Survivors of Violence and Torture and the Solidarity Peace Trust. Its work has established a solid foundation for the continuing efforts to expose torture in our region. SANTOC works to prevent torture, to prosecute those who torture and to rehabilitate survivors of torture through psychosocial services.

h. The PAIA Civil Society Network comprised a range of organizations that promote

the right of access to information, a right protected in the South African Constitution. The organizations involved are the South African History Archive, the South African Human Rights Commission, the Open Democracy Advice Centre, the Centre for Social Accountability at Rhodes University, the Nelson Mandela Foundation, Black Sash, the Centre for Environmental Rights, the Endangered Wildlife Trust, the Freedom of Expression Institute, Legal Resources Centre, Media Monitoring Africa, Open Society Foundation, Public Services Accountability Monitor, Social Economic Rights Institute, South African Litigation Centre, University of Witwatersrand and Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance. Khulumani has focused on developing community-based skills in access to information through its victim empowerment programme. The network promotes and protects the “right to know” and the “right to information”.

i. The Access Initiative National Coalition for South Africa succeeded in its

campaign for the establishment of an alternative dispute resolution mechanism in the form of an office of Information Commissioner to handle the public’s complaints on decisions made in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act No.2 of 2000 (PAIA); for the establishment of a publically accessible Integrated Environmental Management Information Portal to provide processes for planning, managing and providing access to environmental data sets to enable citizens to monitor environmental impact assessments and other processes that may affect their living conditions and circumstances; and to strengthen mechanisms to provide effective protection for whistleblowers through creating public awareness about the new guidelines on the Protected Disclosures Act No.26 of 2000 (PDA), through supporting the adoption at the National Economic Development and Labour Council of a Code of Conduct on the PDA and through promoting the amendment of the PDA to widen its scope to include non-employees towards making whistle-blowing a normal activity, rather than ‘a heroic deed or a villainous pursuit.’

j. The Open Government Partnership has informed Khulumani’s work in promoting

the implementation of citizen-based monitoring of government budgets and plans to build greater openness and responsiveness of the state in its relationship with citizens.

k. The South African Coalition for Transitional Justice comprising Khulumani

Support Group, the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, the International Center for Transitional Justice, the Human Rights Media Centre, the Legal Resources Centre, and the South African

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History Archives, was transformed into a Collaborative Platform for Advocacy on the Unresolved Issues related to Transitional Justice at a meeting of all the member organisations. The agenda has included dealing with political pardons, with political prosecutions, with enforced disappearances, with reparations and with the socio-economic transformation of the lives of victims / survivors. The Coalition has successfully challenged and won lawsuits against government in relation to the special dispensation on prosecutions and on political pardons as well as on the meaning of being granted amnesty and its implications. The Coalition has had several workshops with officials of the government to inform government policy planning in relation to issues of transitional justice.

l. The Business and Human Rights Project Partnership involving the former African

Institute for Corporate Citizenship, Fair Trade in Tourism, the National African Farmers’ Union, the Benchmarks Foundation and Khulumani Support Group produced a manual for use by communities in assessing the compliance of local and international corporates with international norms and standards in respect of human rights and business. The collaboration resulted in the development of a local version of the Human Rights Compliance Assessment that was developed by the Danish Institute for Human Rights. Khulumani has continued to use this instrument in its work involving the empowerment of communities to monitor and report on the impact of corporate activities on communities affected by their operations and to monitor violations of international human rights standards by companies.

m. Khulumani was a founder member of the Right to Know Campaign and continues to support R2K campaigns and advocacy to promote transparency and accountability based on access to information.

n. The Southern African Network on Enforced Disappearances. Khulumani has been a local anchor organisation for the civil society work on enforced disappearances and has developed some limited contact with African regional organisations including with ASADHO in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Khulumani’s advocacy adviser has been a trainer in approaches to resolving enforced disappearances in Burundi and Zimbabwe. Extensive work remains to be done across Africa on this issue. Khulumani has developed a manual of psychosocial processes for using with families affected by enforced disappearances, a booklet on how to investigate an enforced disappearance and a series of story boards that explain the steps involved in resolving enforced disappearances. Khulumani has been active in the successful lobbying for the International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances as a member of the International Coalition against Enforced Disappearances.

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Changing environment and campaigns

pic: Khulumani delegation around reparations issues to Office of the President.

This period since 2003 has seen several major shifts within Khulumani – both in our interactions with government, and within organizational structures:

1) Interaction with Government:

a. Government has moved over the past year towards engaging directly with Khulumani’s management in relation to dealing with issues of victim empowerment, the reintegration of military veterans, and he ongoing consultations with the National Task Team on Presidential Pardons involving the Departments of Justice and Correctional Services.

b. The international law suit was opposed outright by the South African government for several years (although more recently the SA government has accepted that there is some merit in the case) with the 2009 letter of then Minister of Justice Mr Jeff Radebe to the New York court advising it that the South African government wished to see the case proceed because of the violations of international customary law that the lawsuit seeks to address; and

c. Khulumani was asked to engage with re-victimised survivors of human rights

violations that have happened after the TRC cut-off point, in areas where our elected state has not brought hoped-for transformation (this includes issues like the Marikana massacre, and service delivery protests in places like Bekkersdal).

2) Changing Khulumani membership base and structures:

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a. Khulumani has initiated a number of projects for members, aimed at repairing the harm done to people from our apartheid past – under the slogan “turning victims into active citizens”. These include projects such as: -

i. Khulumani Art, Healing and Heritage Workshops, which use art-making to record members’ stories, deepen our understanding of events, provide healing from unresolved trauma (note that our research indicates that government has not provided any trauma counselling or support to apartheid human rights survivors over the past decades), and communicate and commemorate their stories;

ii. Projects that provide for co-operative income generation and financial support projects in isolated communities;

iii. Projects that are embedded within poor communities and that build

capacity for progressively realizing the social and economic rights in the South African Constitution through practical action and through advocacy. This includes participating in activities to address the crisis of access to electricity and to water in local municipalities;

iv. Projects which use environmentally-friendly processes for income-

generation and community support such as the provision of solar lighting to rural households off the electricity grid;

v. Projects which empower members to access democratic processes

available within our society today, such as information access through PAIA requests, and legal recourse for improper administrative processes;

vi. Projects to address stigma and discrimination embedded in our

communities, around issues such as gender, HIV, and xenophobia

Pic: Khulumani workshop participants visit graves of students killed in August 1986 by police, Aliwal North

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b. Developing organizational structures which build membership input and interaction – notably, the KARD database system which records members’ statements about human rights violations and resulting hardships.

Illustration of issues around poverty by Khulumani organizer, Nomarussia Bonase, 2008

c. The membership base itself has changed its nature:

i. Activist members have died and fallen ill in the long period waiting for government implementation

ii. Over time, larger numbers of our members comprise people who were completely left out of the TRC processes (leading to demands that the broad process of acknowledged “victim lists” needs to be reassessed)

iii. Issues facing “second generation” damage from human rights violation increasingly come to the fore (these include youth who have lost parents, suffered from families mired in poverty, unable to access education, or been traumatised by unresolved injustice witnessed or inflicted upon family members – there is increasing evidence that this are drivers of domestic violence, drug use, and other crime in heavily impacted communities). Towards building local knowledge in relation to the transgenerational transmission of trauma and humiliation, Khulumani has hosted a Masters’ student for her thesis on the situation of children and grandchildren of struggle veterans.

Historically, Khulumani was upon two founding blocks: first, the broad commitment in our society, expressed in our elected post-apartheid government, towards providing redress and repair to individuals and communities whose lives have been damaged from past injustices and repressions; and second, upon an active and dedicated membership, many of whom have a long history of experience, skills and understanding of involvement with social movements and activism.

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In part because the original conception of Khulumani envisaged a quick resolution to issues around redress and reconciliation, the organisation’s financial resources, however, for the most part come from:

- membership fees which are necessarily minimal, given the poverty of the membership base;

- donations from individuals, organisations and structures supportive of transformational justice processes; and

- donor support for specific projects.

Khulumani developed a core staff that included a director, a capacity building for economic inclusion officer, a finance and human resources administrator, a membership liaison officer and a database and information management officer.

The national office and administrative staff are designated as a “contact centre” to serve the needs of provincial steering committee members and to coordinate input from members and branches towards taking forward issues that need a national response.

With the changing nature, challenges, and sheer growth in numbers, around Khulumani’s campaigns, the organization sees a need for more formal structures and employment, with staff assigned to and accountable for specific tasks and responsibilities.

Khulumani’s Governance Structure

Khulumani is governed by a Board of Trustees comprising persons elected by Khulumani’s National Steering Committee at the Annual General Meeting, held in Bloemfontein on 27 April 2019. The Khulumani Board is in the process of establishing an Advisory Support Group with specific expertise related to Khulumani’s core issues. The Khulumani Board has scheduled quarterly meetings. The board attends to governance issues. The National Steering Committee oversees the development and support of Khulumani’s community-based membership.

Name Position Contact Details

Mr Gecelo Sidumo Chairperson 073 070 6445 & 060 344 4920; Email: GECELO@webmail.co.za

Mr Elpideo Mutemba Secretary 073 908 1166 & 076 926 6097; Email: elpideom@yahoo.com

Mrs Beauty Ndlela Treasurer 083 593 1570; Email: madestus@gmail.com

Ms Belinda Ameterra Additional Member 079 550 9816; Email: ameterracw@gmail.com

Ms Tsholofelo Lobeko Additional Member 063 058 6956; Email: tshololobeko@gmail.com

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Khulumani’s Management Structure Khulumani’s National Contact Centre, now based in Pretoria, serves as the coordinating centre of the organisation and the point of access to the organisation for the general public. Its management is the responsibility of the National Director assisted by the Finance and Human Resources Officer and the Member Liaison Officer.

The National Steering Committee comprises three representatives from each of the Provincial Steering Committees and meets as far as possible every six months to inform the work of the organisation through cooperative planning and to advise the Board. The office-bearers of the National Steering Committee assist with Board with all planning and decision-making of Khulumani member groups. The Provincial Steering Committees comprise representatives from different districts within each province and provide leadership on strategic issues affecting their regions of the country.

Elected Office-Bearers of the National Steering Committee

Name Position Contact Details

Mr Mbulelo Welcome Lipile NSC Chairperson 084 836 3705 & 074 378 3707; Email: NSCChair@khulumani.net & waterfordignity@gmail.com

Ms Nolitha Tuta NSC Secretary 073 489 2802; Email: tutanolitha@gmail.com

Geographic Focus of Operations

Khulumani Support Group has organised member groups in all the provinces – varying between 5 and 10 organised groups per province.

The groups meet regularly, either weekly or monthly depending on local conditions.

The organisation has a significant penetration in urban and rural communities across the country where Khulumani members contribute to activities to facilitate constructive change in their local communities, such as

• participating in Community Police Forums,

• developing Khulumani SAFIC member groups that work on community social

cohesion;

• serving as members of the Independent Correctional Facilities Visitors under the

Judicial Inspectorate of Correctional Facilities to report on prison conditions and

prisoner concerns;

• serving as IEC-accredited election observers,

• conducting door-to-door visits to provide care and support to vulnerable households,

• facilitating after-school activities for learners,

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• conducting community surveys to review the capacity of local municipalities to deal

with natural disasters;

• participating in community commemoration and heritage-related events; and

• offering social encounter experiences, amongst other activities.

Staff Information

Name Role Qualifications Experience (years) with Khulumani

Dr Marjorie Jobson National Director Medical Doctor, Organisational Development Facilitator

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Mr Pierre le Roux Database & Information Manager

Degree in Library Science, Website Manager & Citizen Journalism Facilitator

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Ms Faradiba Morton Finance & Human Resources Administrator

Grant & Fundraising Support & HR Assistance

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Mr Frans Mogajana Member Liaison Officer ICT Qualification 11

Mr Dick Mokoena Representative, Khulumani Support Group

Freedom Park Verification Committee

3

Mr Thapelo Lehobye Khulumani Social Media Project Officer

Social Media Technical Assistant

2

Mr Charles Ndaba Hlatshwayo

Khulumani Disappearances Officer

Investigation, Support & Follow-up to families of the Disappeared

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Ms Felicity Morton Khulumani Advocacy & Communication Support Project Officer

Advocacy Support 1

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Staff Demographics

Black White Male Female PW Disabilities

Full-time

1 2 1 2 0

Part-time

4 1 4 1 2

TOTAL

5 3 5 3 2

Percentages

62% 37% 62% 37% 25%

Khulumani Staff & Interns, August 2015